Saturday, September 26, 2015

5 Reasons to Give HR Some Love

Sadly, some of it is justified, but there’s
also a lot to appreciate about HR. For example:

We know more than you
think. I’m not talking
about best practices, workplace trends, or breaking employment law-related
news, I’m talking about important stuff, like who in the company does a great
job and who’s a problem in the making—waaaaaay before the manager wants to
admit it. (I’ll let you in on a little secret:It’s all in the new-hire paperwork. Whoever’s wildly irresponsible
with the paperwork is most likely a disorganized hot mess or an entitled jerk, and
in time the work will tell. The opposite is true for those who diligently and
completely return their stuff. Honest.)

We’d take a bullet for
you. Metaphorically,
that is. In 2011, SHRM reported that nearly 31.4 percent of HR professionals
had been bullied at work.
Sixty percent said they experienced bullying behavior on a daily basis. One
reason? According to study author Theresa Daniel, HR professionals often stayed
in a bad situation because they were serving as the “ ‘organizational shock
absorbers’—they cared about the employees so much that they felt if they exited
their role there would be nobody there to protect the other employees.”I’ll just let that sink in for a moment.

We’re getting better. A couple of weeks ago, I had a
conversation with a retired HR pro who expressed her opinion that handbooks
should be as bare bones as possible—you know, so an employee can never “prove”
a company isn’t following its policies. Geez Louise. Thank you for your service
and goodbye! I can’t imagine any forward thinking HR practitioner harboring
this attitude. (At least none of the ones I associate with think this way.) I believe
that means we deserve some credit for evolving. Don’t you?

We make it look easy. Has everyone been paid the right amount
and are all payroll deductions correct? Check. No EEOC complaints this year,
last year, or the year before? Check. Is the new time and attendance system in
place and is everyone trained in its use? Check. Are all positions filled and
all new hires on board with the (aforementioned) paperwork complete? Check,
check, check. It’s not as effortless as it looks, folks. Not even boring old
payroll. (Well, I actually like payroll, but I know everyone doesn’t.)

We keep your secrets. Whether they’re financial, medical, or
marital HR keeps your secrets. What’s more, you can sit in our chair and call
your boss an incompetent, narcissistic douche-bag, and we’ll never tell. And
when your boss says she’d love to fire you, but her boss won’t allow it, we won’t tell that either. You call it
two-faced, we call it doing our job.

So
there you have it. Five very good reasons why HR should get a little more
respect once in a while. Can you think of others?